What Have You Cooked Recently?

made a buffalo chicken lasagne that was a nice twist on normal lasagne.
finely chopped celery, bell peppers and onion. bit of garlic, tomato puree, chicken thighs and a whole bottle of frank's hot sauce for the ragu component.
for the bechamel I added lots of blue cheese to make a funky sauce then topped the whole thing with parmesan. I'd make it again but add mayo/ranch sauce to the bechamel for a bit more tang. Maybe switch out less passata for more hot sauce. It was nice but too lasagne adjacent. Think it would be better if it was more it's own thing.

I also had a CUNT of a hangover recently and needed some MORALE, namely junk food and crap. I got some cream of chicken soup in a can and it's went right downhill from last time I had it. Was thinking of making a thin bechamel and adding some onion powder, garlic powder, msg, soy sauce and chickem stock to it. Anyone think that would work and be nice? I'm not looking for comforting homemade stuff with real chicken and ingredients. I'm looking for the gloopy shite from a can. cheap nostalgia slop.
 
Finally threw out the last of my bag of old, stale paprika and replaced it. The only appropriate way to celebrate such a thing is chicken paprikash, aka Hungary's greatest contribution to humanity. 20260422_184119.jpg

PSA for those unaware: paprika goes stale quickly, even relative to other dried, pre-ground seasonings. Do not try to be clever like younger me and buy a big value-sized bag off Amazon, lest you be saddled with the better part of a pound of mostly flavorless, vaguely smokey red powder that you nonetheless feel obligated to make use of. Buy small, use quickly
 
Last edited:
Bean salad. Cannot get enough of flageolet beans at the moment.

One can cannelini beans, one can flageolet. Fried onion and pancetta with olive oil. Capers (and caper vinegar), black olives, whole hazelnuts. Loads of chopped, steamed tenderstem broccoli. Dash of peri peri, dash of shio koji. Left it over night so the shio koji did its work.
Would have added fresh spinach but it had gone off.
Sometimes add nutmeg or lemon zest and ground pepper or pumpkin seeds or whatever but it was fine as it was. Sometimes plain is ok. Ate it on its own with loads of wine.
20260429_154107.jpg
10/10 easy end-of-month, out-of-can type food.
 
IMG_0077.jpegIMG_0079.jpeg
I made a salted key lime pie with a Swiss meringue top. Absolutely delicious, every aspect of the pie was dialed up. It’s salty because I made a ton of jars of Vietnamese style brined and aged lemons and limes, and they just have great flavors.
The saltiness and aged lemon adds so much, perfectly balanced and complex.
The crust is a graham cracker crust made with browned butter, toasted macadamia nuts, brown sugar, and brined lemon peel. The custard uses some lemon brine to add that salt and complexity.
The meringue is a Swiss meringue with lemon zest, and that really helps everything some together with a toasted light sweetness.
I’m very proud of how this experiment turned out, it’s a keeper. It’s unmistakably still a key lime pie, but different enough that it’s an elevated one.
 
I made dandelion fritters for lunch. It's been a long long time since I had some, but those suckers are everywhere, this Spring. Got enough greens to fry up with bacon and onions for dinner. A friend got some extra trout on Sunday, so I'm going to cook that up tonight, as well.
 
I've made a few more sourdough loaves and have fine-tuned my technique. It's denser and softer than sourdough "should" be according to social media, but I like it that way. I was intimidated because many of my gal pals were showing me horrifying photos of their first loaves, talking about how they struggle to get their dough to rise, etc etc but when I got to it myself it really wasn't that hard. I don't understand how, in the age of the internet with detailed recipes right at your fingers, people fuck it up unless you get distracted by something.

Anyway I plan to try mixing in some additional ingredients during stretch and folds next time. Like cheddar cheese and chili oil, or chocolate chips and freeze-dried strawberries.
 
Big Miss Steak said:
I've made a few more sourdough loaves and have fine-tuned my technique. It's denser and softer than sourdough "should" be according to social media, but I like it that way. I was intimidated because many of my gal pals were showing me horrifying photos of their first loaves, talking about how they struggle to get their dough to rise, etc etc but when I got to it myself it really wasn't that hard. I don't understand how, in the age of the internet with detailed recipes right at your fingers, people fuck it up unless you get distracted by something.

Anyway I plan to try mixing in some additional ingredients during stretch and folds next time. Like cheddar cheese and chili oil, or chocolate chips and freeze-dried strawberries.
Click to expand...
In my experience, when someone complains about their dough not rising properly it's because they only paid attention to the listed rise time and didn't account for things like their kitchen being cold. People really buy hard into the whole "baking is a science" meme and follow recipes to the letter to their detriment.
 
Was feeling super lazy tonight, so I just made a tuna salad sandwich using canned albacore, Kewpie mayo, a bit of ginger and wasabi from tubes, some ponzu, a few drops of sesame oil and the last of some pepitas that I had hanging around. Threw that on toasted sourdough bread with most of a sliced tomato and some butter lettuce and I wasn't mad at the end result.

Hardly haute cuisine, but it took about five minutes to bash together and was quite tasty.
 
Smoked some chicken thighs with McCormick Applewood Rub and used cherry wood. Added a doctored up barbecue sauce (added a touch of apple cider vinegar, chili flakes, and a small knob of butter) and brushed that on the last 10 minutes of smoking.
That'll be lunch or dinner for tomorrow
 
IMG_20260430_000015554_HDR.jpg


A whole bunch of kugel. I was going to make just enough for one, but decided to make a whole batch because why not.
 
CryptoHermit said:
In my experience, when someone complains about their dough not rising properly it's because they only paid attention to the listed rise time and didn't account for things like their kitchen being cold. People really buy hard into the whole "baking is a science" meme and follow recipes to the letter to their detriment.
Click to expand...
Most baking recipes don't contain enough salt. One time I made cookies and thought I fucked up irredeemably bc I added like 3x the amount of salt the recipe called for (I was hungover and added a tablespoon instead of a tsp) but i tried a little of the dough and it tasted great, so i baked them anyway and I got an insane number of compliments on them from the group I was baking for
 
Munchin' on Some Grindage said:
These are worth it. Made them the other day.
Click to expand...
Trying that tonight with some grilled chicken and scalloped potatoes from yesterday. It was all suppose to be done at the same time but the prep took too long and the family was getting hungry. Then for whatever reason the chicken on the grill refused to stop flaring up and had to be monitored the whole time.
The whole reason I want to do the onion bites is to enjoy finally having an 8" skillet again. Went from Teflon to stainless steel because I can be rough and would like to be able to use metal utensils when cooking. Also worry that our gas range can be harsh on cheap pans. The previous small Teflon skillet lasted six months before the Teflon layer began to peel off. As a result of trying to get use to the new pans I have also been making broccoli and cheese omelettes a few times a week. Don't know why but broccoli goes really well in an omelette in my opinion.
 
As customary in my house around May, just cleaned up the grill and the smoker, wife's blended a batch of our house seasoning, bought a nice slab of brisket, and beginning a nice slow barbecuing. By tommorow night, we'll have the meat ready and by the weekend we'll have a full spread of baked beans and potato salad, all homemade.
 
So the awesome blossoms ended up more like onion fritters due to using too much batter. They were not bad but the goal was to find a way to make something like a blooming onion. If I do the fritter style again it was suggested to add corn. Now I have two recipes. One for veggie fritter and the other for fried onion bites.
PXL_20260430_234150661.jpg
 

Attachments

  • PXL_20260430_234155694.jpg
    PXL_20260430_234155694.jpg
    3.6 MB · Views: 4
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom